Search for Brusilov expedition to continue in 2017

TASS reports that enthusiastic researchers will continue looking next spring for traces of the expedition of Georgy Brusilov, a polar explorer who went missing on the schooner St Anna in the Arctic Ocean in 1914. A helicopter with the expedition "In the Footsteps of Two Captains" crashed on the Yamal Peninsula on April 18 of this year.

"The researchers will continue the expedition ‘In the Footsteps of Two Captains' next April, said Marina Patsai, deputy director of the Onezhskoye Pomorye National Park in the Arkhangelsk Region. The park's director lost his life in the helicopter accident. The main goal of the search expedition this year was to install three radio beacons on ice floes where the last traces of the drifting schooner St Anna were found.

"This year we bought beacons but because of the crash on Bely Island, the helicopters didn't reach the destination and had to turn back. We are planning to install them next spring," Ms Patsai said.

She noted that similar studies had been conducted with radio beacons in 2013. Signals transmitted via a satellite will allow the researchers to determine the likely route of drifting ice in these latitudes, and thus, the possible route of the ice-bound Brusilov's schooner.